Did anyone in your personal life inspire the Em character in The Smallest Thing? Or the father? Or mother?

I’ve never knowingly based a character directly on someone I know, but bits of my personal experience and the traits of people I’ve met often sneak in.

There is a bit of the teenage me in Em. I didn’t grow up in small village like Em. I grew in the suburbs of a major city, but I remember feeling like I didn’t belong, like I was destined for something else. I think it’s a universal part of growing up, whether you feel confined by a small town, or someone else’s expectations, or just that you don’t fit in somehow, there’s something in each of us that wants to push the boundaries set for us. Em isn’t a rebel, and nor was I, but she wants to test the limits of her upbringing and be her own person.

Em’s dad is the kind of dad he needed to be to push Em into action. He’s a good guy, but the boundaries of his world don’t match Em’s. His role in the story is to provide the initial obstacles for Em and then teach her how to become her own person within the boundaries imposed on her by the quarantine. He is loosely based on a someone I know who is very involved in the community in which I grew up. He’s a really nice guy and does a lot of great conservation work in the community, but I could imagine the challenges of growing up in his shadow and having to live up to his reputation. He provided the basis for the kind of dad that would create friction for Em.

As for Em’s mother, I’d like to state for the record that none of the terrible mothers I write are in the least bit based on my own mother. I’m sure people who’ve read my books look sideways at my poor mother now, but she couldn’t be more different to the characters I write. Em’s mother came out of a writing prompt. I wrote about a character who discovers a secret (always a good prompt for digging up juicy storylines) and realized that Em wasn’t the only person feeling stifled in the village. Em’s mother has an entire unwritten backstory of how she came to find herself in that awful predicament. I’m pretty certain she has a lot of regrets about the decisions she made by the end of Em’s story.

Has anyone relayed to you their own experience with meeting someone they knew in a prior life?

A few weeks ago I posted something about the research I did while writing A Strange Companion, including doing a past life regression. Someone commented that, as a three-year-old child, she had recalled memories of a place she had never visited before. She knew details of her family life and her role in the village, and even recalled some Native American words. It opened up a whole conversation and several women said their children had had similar experiences. I’m sure there are any number of scientific explanations for this, but I find the possibility of reincarnation fascinating.

Why is it important to you to write about young adults?

That period of life between age 16 and 25 is one of huge transitions. You’ve been inching toward adulthood all through your teens, and pushing the independence and self-discovery envelope. Then suddenly, you’re an adult and so many of the safety nets of school, parents, living at home, being supported financially, and being “just a kid” fall away.

I remember being 17 and feeling like I had this whole “adulting” business sorted out. Then I went away to college and my world blew wide open. I had to navigate new relationships with people from all different backgrounds, I had responsibilities, things weren’t handed to me on a plate anymore, and I had to deal with so many “adult” situations that I was totally unprepared for. That period is such a steep learning curve, which makes it fantastic grist for the fiction mill.

And even though I write stories about young people, they’re not solely stories for young people. The themes of letting go of a lost love, navigating grief, discovering who you really are, and figuring out what’s really important in life are universal themes that we have to figure out well into adulthood. As for the topic of navigating relationships, that is a never-ending program of study.

The Smallest Thing and A Strange Companion are richly set in the English countryside. Any plans to write a book set in SoCal? I’m an Anglophile so I’m happy with more village life.

They say “write what you know” and I seem to be mining my early life for stories at the moment. That said, I’ve now lived in Southern California for more than half my life, so a shift in venue is bound to happen at some point. When I come up with a new story idea, I do weigh the pros and cons of setting it in one place or another. I needed to set The Smallest Thing in Eyam, and I wanted to set A Strange Companion in my hometown of Sheffield. If a story would be better served being set in L.A., I’d certainly be open to the possibility.

Did you need an agent to get your story out, or did you choose the self-publishing route? Considering the route you took, what caveats do you have for new authors with no publishing experience?

I have published both my fiction and non-fiction books through my own publishing company, Steel Rose Press, so no, I didn’t need an agent for that. What’s wonderful about this current era in publishing is that there are many ways to get a story in front of readers. There are also countless authors willing to share their experiences online, and offer lots of great advice for new authors. My caveat would be that, no matter which publication path you choose, make sure your story is ready to be read. Work on your craft, find trusted beta readers, be willing to accept feedback, and do the work to make the book the best it can be. If you send out a half-baked story to an agent or publisher, you risk a rejection notice and potentially burning a bridge for future work. But if you self-publish a half-baked book, readers will send their rejection slips via bad reviews, word-of-mouth, and with their future purchasing decisions. The trick is finding the balance between getting your work into the world where it can be read, and not publishing in haste, just because you can.

What’s the next book you’re writing? When will that be out?

At the moment, I have several projects bubbling away. I have a couple of novels brewing and some shorter pieces. I keep stirring them and testing their worth. Eventually, one of them will bubble up and demand to be written.

The thing with writing a novel is that you have to live with the idea for a long time. Not just through that first draft, but through numerous revisions and editing, then through the publication process, and then you have to talk about it once it’s published. I’m waiting to see which of my ideas has the necessary heat. So, it might be a while before the next novel is ready.

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A big thank you to everyone who submitted questions. I answered lots of other great questions during the blog tour. If you missed it, you can still catch up and visit the stops. Here is a rundown of all the sites I visited:

July 18: Rebecca Lacko and I discuss researching and writing The Smallest Thing, why fathers figure so prominently in my stories, and how published authors can find effective book marketing techniques.

July 19: At A New Look on Books I answer the question, “Could you be a hero?” Hint: the answer is “yes” but you’ll have to read the post to see why.

July 20: Heather Sunseri had lots of great questions about favorite destinations and how travel has colored my writing.

July 21: At Booked for Review, I chatted about being a late bloomer and how the wrong path can lead to the right destination.

July 22: In a rooftop hotel lounge overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Michael Raymond and I discussed killing off beloved characters, tricks for finding a characters voice, and how a scratched record marked a turning point in my musical evolution.

July 23: Farah Oomerbhoy asks about the one wish I have for my books, and pries a nugget of Aiden trivia out of me.

The very last thing 17-year-old Emmott Syddall wants is to turn out like her dad. She’s descended from ten generations who never left their dull English village, and there’s no way she’s going to waste a perfectly good life that way. She’s moving to London and she swears she is never coming back.

But when the unexplained deaths of her neighbors force the government to quarantine the village, Em learns what it truly means to be trapped. Now, she must choose. Will she pursue her desire for freedom, at all costs, or do what’s best for the people she loves: her dad, her best friend Deb, and, to her surprise, the mysterious man in the HAZMAT suit?

Inspired by the historical story of the plague village of Eyam, this contemporary tale of friendship, community, and impossible love weaves the horrors of recent news headlines with the intimate details of how it feels to become an adult—and fall in love—in the midst of tragedy.

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I can’t wait to share Emmott’s story with you and introduce you to the fictional people of the very real village of Eyam.

To celebrate, I’ve put together a special gift box with a signed copy of The Smallest Thing and some surprise gifts. To enter the giveaway, come with me on my blog tour as I talk to authors and book bloggers, answer their prying questions about everything from travel to chocolate, and dish up some behind-the-scenes tidbits about The Smallest Thing.

It’s the story of Em, a young woman on the brink of embarking on her new life, who finds herself trapped in a dull English village by a government-imposed quarantine. It’s a story of “self-sacrifice, the power of human touch, and the need to act in the face of horror,” writes Catherine Linka, author of A Girl Called Fearless, who was kind enough to do an early review of the book.

And if you’d like to join me to celebrate the book’s release, I’m throwing a Publication Party at {pages}: a bookstore in Manhattan Beach on Tuesday, July 18th at 7pm. I’ll be signing, reading, and—most likely—eating cake. Hope to see you there.

When people ask me, “What are you working on?” they’ll often get a blank stare in return. It’s not that I don’t know what I’m writing about, but in the early stages of a project, so much can change. Plots evolve, characters take over, and themes emerge. What might have started off as “a book about the war” will undoubtedly evolve into a book about something completely different, such as a story about how people deal with grief.

My novel, The Smallest Thing, (coming out later this year) was inspired by the plague village of Eyam. I had envisioned retelling a 400-year-old story of love and self-sacrifice, but once I started writing it, I couldn’t find a way to make it contemporary.

I started writing anyway, beginning with two real-life characters, Emmott Syddall and Roland Torre, and wrote a few scenes in present day. I liked the scenes, but the story wasn’t compelling. Frankly, it was a bit too sappy for my tastes. Undeterred, I kept on writing. I wrote about the village, about Emmott’s fictional family. I wrote a scene where the quarantine is imposed (I kind of loved that scene), and I sketched out a story idea. But it still wasn’t gripping me (not to mention my plot was full of holes!)

And then, in a writer’s workshop, I was given a first-line prompt, “He hides in the marrow of my bones.” I wrote what amounted to an internal monologue, with no idea where it would lead. All of a sudden, a new character walked onto the page and hijacked my story.

Suddenly, my dear, sweet Emmott wasn’t carrying on a chaste affair across the river with a boy from the next village; she was falling in love with an untouchable man. Suddenly the story wasn’t about how a village is ravaged by a plague; it was about one young woman and her journey of self-discovery. And suddenly, I loved this new story.

The story continued to evolve once my mystery man sidled onto my page and, even as I got closer to a finished draft, I kept discovering new details. It’s one of the things I love most about the creative process!

I’m noodling ideas for my next novel project now. So, if you happen to ask me what I’m working on and what it’s about, and all you get from me is a blank stare, know that something is going on in my head, and my story is just waiting to evolve.

Imagine you live in an idyllic English village. Suddenly your friends and neighbors begin falling ill and dying of a deadly infectious disease. In order to stop the spread of this virus to the surrounding villages and beyond, you and your neighbors make a monumental decision. You quarantine your village; no one comes in, no one goes out. For months you isolate yourselves, relying on the kindness of surrounding neighbors to provide food and supplies. You wait and watch, while the disease rips through families, sparing some lives and taking others. When it’s all over, 260 people—more than two thirds of the village—are dead, but the contagion has been stopped, potentially saving the lives of thousands of people—and your village will be remembered for centuries to come for its courage and self-sacrifice.

Sounds like a great premise for a novel, doesn’t it? In fact, it’s a true story. This is the story of the plague village of Eyam, a small village in the north of England, not far from where I grew up.

In the mid-1600s The Great Plague ravaged London, killing more than 100,000 people. Thanks to a stowaway flea in a bolt of cloth, the disease made its way to Eyam, some 150 miles to the north. Lead by the local vicar, Reverend Mompesson, the villagers made the horrific decision to isolate themselves and prevent the plague from spreading further.

I’ve always been fascinated by this part of history and the personal stories that have endured. There’s the story of Emmott Syddall, engaged to a boy in the next village. The two lovers continued their affair across the quarantine boundary from opposing riverbanks. Their story is commemorated in a stained glass window in the church. There’s the story of villagers leaving money in a pot of vinegar (to disinfect it) in exchange for supplies from surrounding villages. And there are the tragic stories, such as Elizabeth Hancock, who buried her husband and six children, and yet never became infected.

I first heard these stories as young girl visiting Eyam and they’ve stuck with me ever since. They’re an important part of my local history and I’ve always wanted to find a way to share them with a wider audience. I didn’t want to write historical fiction (plus Geraldine Brooks already did it, and undoubtedly better than I could have, in her 2002 novel Year of Wonders), and writing a contemporary version of the story was fraught with roadblocks, thanks to the wonders of modern medicine and technology.

But I really wanted to tell this story, so I started writing. I started with the characters of Emmott Syddall and Roland Torre, and wrote some scenes with them. And I kept writing, until a new story started to emerge.

I won’t ruin the whole thing here, but I will write more about how the story evolved in another post. I’ll also be sharing some excerpts from the book soon. Please consider signing up for my newsletter for updates on all this.

For now, I’ll leave you with a few more snaps of Eyam, taken from my research trip last year.

You can still see the Plague Cottages, where George Viccars, the first victim lived. The cottages are still inhabited. You can also see the church and churchyard where some of the victims were buried.

One of my favorite spots is Cucklett Delf, where Emmott and Roland allegedly met, where outdoor services were held during the quarantine, and where a memorial service is held each year to commemorate the incredible sacrifice.